Method and machine for producing cord fabric



Sept. 23, 1924. 1,509,365

T. MIDGLEY METHOD AND MACHINE FOR PRODUCING CORD FABRIC Filed April 17 1919 Patented Sept. 23, 1924.

umreo STATES 1,509,365 PATENT OFFICE.

THOMAS MIDGLEY, OF SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, jASSIG-NO'R TO THE FISK RUB- BER COMPANY, OF CHIOOPEE FALLS, MASSACHUSETTS, A. CORPORATION OE MASSACHUSETTS.

METHOD AND MACHINE FOR PRODUCING CORD FABRIC.

Application filed April 17, 191 3. Serial No. 290,760.

To all whom it may concem:

Be it known that I, THOMAS MIDGLEY, a citizen of the United States of America, residing at Springfield, in the county of Hampden andState of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods and Machines for Producing Cord Fabric, of which the following is a specification.

My present invention relates to a method and a machine for coating fibrous material with rubber, and in particular for producing what is commonly known as cord fabric,

which is a weftless fabric used in the construction of rubber tires, and which is composed of a plurality of parallel cords united by a matrix of rubber.

It has for its object the manufacture of a fabric having the fibrous material thereof united more firmly to the rubber than has formerly been the case. A further object is the provision of a method and a machine for increasing the speed" with which cord fabric may be manufactured. Further objects will appear from the specification and claims;

' It is a well known fact in the manufacture of compound rubber and fabric goods,

that great difficulty is experienced in securin a firm bond between the fabric and the ru her. The fabric is not, as it were, wet by the rubber, and the latter does not penetrate beyond the outermost fibers of the fabricforming material. Considerable effort has been directed towards finding some way in which the adhesion between the rubber and the fibrous material could be improved and by which the rubber could be made to more deeply penetrate into the fibrous material. These efforts have been, on the whole, unsuccessful. The rubber cannot be worked or kneaded into the fibrous material, asits action seems to be merely a mechanical catching of the outermost fibers, and as it does not wet the fabric under any pressure which can be brought to bear.

In a co-pending application filed by me March 18, 1919, Serial No. 283,368, I have described one wa in which this adhesion of the fabric and rubber may be improved and by which a satisfactory cord fabric may be produced. The present invention is directed towards the same result but in a different direction.

'sure that the rubber It has also been proposed to make a slightly different type of cord fabric b first formmg what is known as thread abric, having the warp formed of cords and the weft formed of threads rather widely spaced, as, for example, every half inch; and then running this fabric through an ordinary form of calender such as is used for coating woven fabric. One difliculty with this process is that the cords are necessarily located close together, so that the rubber does not flow between the cords and occurs only as a thin fiat coating touchin the cords over but a slight portion of their circumference. This method, of course, does nothing towards solving the problem of imperfect adhesion referred to above. By my invention, I ini will not only firmly adhere to the fibers of the cords, but will also penetrate the spaces between the cords so that the cords themselves will be entirely enclosed by rubber. Of course a fabric having the cords actually touching each other can be produced if desired, but in this case the rubber will not penetrate between the cords and the bond between the cords and rubber will not be as firm as where the cords are slightly spaced.

I have found that by first moistening the fabric or cords with some liquid which acts as a solvent of rubber, the rubber later ap 'rubber is present whether ordinary fabric is bein coated or cord fabric is being made. My invention, is however, especially suited for the manufacture of cord fabric, and the mechanism I prefer for carrying out the invention has been illustrated in connection with such manufacture.

The mechanism for moistening the cords, where cord fabric is being made, and for a plying the rubber thereto may be of any (1 one manner of forming a cord sired type but I have shown, as the referred embodiment, my invention as app ied to a calender such as is now in use for coating ordinary woven fabric. This machine will be described with particular reference to the accompanying drawings, in which- Fig. 1 represents a fragmentary vertical section through a calender, embodying my invention, a. creel for supplying the cords being shown diagrammatically;

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary elevation of parts shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is an enlar ed detail of the supports for the comb, also showing the roll for pressing the cords into contact with the rubber;

ig; 4 is a transverse section of a compound sheet made by the apparatus above;

Fig. 5 is a diagrammatic view showing fabric coated on both sides; and

Fig. 6 is a transverse section of such a fabric.

My invention has been illustrated as applied to a calender of an ordinary type having side frames 10 and upper and lower rolls 11 and 12 respectively. These may be two of the rolls of an ordinary three roll calender, the other roll being spaced from the two being used so as to be inoperative; and for all practical purposes, the calender may be treated as if it had but two rolls. These rolls are rotated in the direction of the arrows by any suitable mechanism which is not necessary to illustrate as such devices are well known. A bank of rubber 13 is placed between and to one side of the rolls 11 and 12, and is worked by these rolls into a thin sheet 14 in which form it is delivered to the cord applying device.

The cord moistening, spacing and applying mechanism is mounted on a shelf 15 secured in brackets 16 fastened to the frames 10 of the calender. Slides 17 are mounted on ways 18 carried by the shelf and are threaded to receive screws 19 which rotate freely in brackets 20 fastened to the shelf 15, but are confined against axial motion therein. Screws 19 carry worm wheels 21 meshing with worms 22 on a shaft extending between brackets 20 and rotatable by means of a hand wheel 23. By turning this hand wheel, slides 17 and the parts carried thereby may be reciprocated toward and away from the calender roll for a purpose to be described. Extending between slides 17 is a small shaft 24 which may be adjustably secured therein by means of a set screw 25.

Fixedly mounted on this shaft is a frame 26, in which is located a plurality of parallel slats 27, preferably of sheet metal. These slats are at a distance apart corresponding to the' spacing desired for the cords, and form, together with their frame, what will be hereinaftertermed the comb. Also carried in slides 17 is alfluted roll 28 which serves to press the cords firmly against the sheet of rubber 14 on the calender roll. The grooves in this roll receive the cords and preserve the spacing given by the comb. It will be seen that by adjusting the position of slides 17, as described above, the roll 28 may be forced against the lower calender roll with any desired degree of pressure.

Carried by the shelf 15 and extending transversely of the machine for substantially the same distance as the comb, is a receptacle 29 adapted to contain the solvent, and having at its upper side an aperture to receive a wick 30, which draws the solvent out of the receptacle by capillary attraction. This wick may be made of any suitable material, such as felt or cotton. Adjacent the top of the wick, and carried either by the frames 10 or by the receptacle 29, are guide members or rollers 31 which serve to guide the cords over the top of the wick. The cords, denoted by 32, are fed from a creel 33 shown diagrammatically in Fig. 1.

The compound fabric of cords and rubber may be wound up on a reel 34 which is conveniently mounted in oblique slots 35 in brackets 36, secured to the side frames. This permits the reel to be frictionally rotated by the lower calender roll, and to move away from the calender roll as the diameter of the reel increases.

The operation of the device described above is as follows-- The cords 32, being led from the creel over guides 31, pass over the wick 30, and are impregnated thereby with the solvent, with which receptacle 29 is kept filled. The cords then pass through comb 27, which locates them in the proper spaced relation, and over roll 28, each cord being received in one of the grooves of this roll. As will be seen from Fig. 4, the cords are preferably slightly spaced, the grooves in roller 28 maintaining t em in this position, and are pressed thoroughly into the rubber sheet 14, which penetrates the spaces between the cords as shown in this figure. The solvent which the cords have received from the wick reacts with the rubber and causes the latter to permeate the fibrous material of the cords themselves, in-

suring a very firm adhesion between the this case, the fabric 37, prepared as described 1 above, may be passed directly between the rolls 38 and 39 of a three roll calender. This calender has a roll 40 between which and the roll 39 39 a bank of rubber 41 is worked out into a thin sheet 42, which is pressed into contact with the uncoated side of fabric 37 by the rolls 38 and 39. The compound fabno 43 resulting from this rocedure and which is shown in section in ig. 6, may be delivered or rolled up in any suitable way. In Fig. 6, the com ound fabric is shown as if it were compose of two distinct layers of rubber, but it will be understood that the layers of uncured stock are inseparably and integrally united as soon as they are pressed together. This method of enclosing the cords between two layers of rubber has the advanta e over that first described of applying t e second coating of rubber before the solvent has had time to dry out of the cords. The'same close cohesion is thus secured between the cords and the second coating of rubber as was the case with the first coating.

Care should be taken that a suihcient width should be given to the wick 30 so that the fabric may be thoroughly coated with the solvent, and the s eed of the cords and the distance of travel etween the wick and roll 28 should be so regulated that the solvent will have an cipportunity to thoroughly permeate the cor s.

While I have described both method and apparatus with particular and detailed reference to the manufacture of a cord fabric having an appreciable spacing between the cords, my invention is not limited to such. a

fabric. The method is equally applicable in its broader as ect to cord fabric, with the cords either a jacent or spaced, thread fabric, or ordinary woven fabric. The apparatus can be readily adapted for use with either thread fabric or woven fabric by merely omitting the comb, and to cord fabric having adjacent cords b decreasin the spacing of the slats of the. comb an the grooves in roll 28. In view articularly of this, I do not consider myself limited to the exact structure or procedure shown or described, and have set forth what I believe to be my invention in the appended claims.

1. The method of making cord fabric consisting in applying a rubber solvent to a plurality of cords, ressing the cords against one surface of a s eat of uncured rubber, and

pressing a second sheet of uncured rubber against the uncoated side of the cords.

2. An apparatus for forming a weftless sheet of ru erized fabric comprising a calender to apply :1. skim coat of rubber, means adjacent t e calender for treating the cords with a cord penetrating material to bind the skim coat to the cords, and cord guiding and holding means adjacent the calender to maintain the cords in the desired parallel relation as they join the skim coat of rubber.

3. In a device of the class described, a receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick dipping into the solvent in said receptacle and adapted to draw the solvent by capillary attraction therefrom, means to guide fibrous material into contact with the wick, and means to press the material against a sheet of rubber.

4. In a device of the class described, a receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick dipping into the solvent in said receptacle and adapted to draw the solvent by capillary attraction therefrom, means to guide fibrous material into contact with the wick, a plurality of calender rolls between which a sheet of rubber is formed, and a roll for ressing the material against the sheet of ru her on one of the calender rolls.

5. The method of forming weftless cord fabric which consists in treating separated parallel cords with a liquid material for binding a skim coat to the cords, maintaining the cords in separated parallel condition until the skim coat is applied, and applying the skim coat on and between the cords to permanently bond them in separated parallel condition.

6. In a device of the class described, means for guiding a plurality of parallel cords, a

receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick dipping into the solvent in said receptacle and adapted to draw the solvent therefrom by capillary attraction, said wick beinglocated with a surface adjacent the path of the travel of the cords, whereby the solvent is applied to the cords, and means to press the cords against a sheet of rubber.

.7. In a device of the class described, means for guiding a plurality of parallel cords, means for impregnating the cords with a solvent of rubber, a plurality-of calender rolls between which a sheet of rubber is formed, and a grooved roll constructed and arran ed to'press the cords against the sheet of rub er on one of the calender rolls.

8. In a device of the class described, a receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick di ping into the solvent in said receptacle an adapted to draw the solvent by capillary attraction therefrom,

for rubber, means for arra in spaced and separated para them against a previously formed sheet of rubber, and means for pressing asecond sheet of rubber against the opposite side of the sheet of cords, whereby the rubber sheets are caused to adhere to the cords and to unite with each other between the cords.

10. In a device of the class described, a receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick dippin into'the solvent in said receptacle and a apted to draw the solvent by capillary attraction there-from, means for guiding a plurality of cords in contact with the wick, means to locate the cords in spaced parallel relation, and means to press the cords so located against a'sheet of rubber.

11. In a device of the class described, means for impregnating a plurality of cords with a solvent of rubber, means to locate the cords in spaced parallel relation, a plurality of calender rolls between which a sheet of rubber is formed, and a grooved roll constructed and arranged to maintain the cords in such relation and to press them against a sheet of rubber .on one of the calender rolls.

12. In a device of the class described, a receptacle adapted to contain a solvent of rubber, a wick dipping into the solvent in said receptacle and adapted to draw the solvent therefrom by capillary attraction,

means for guiding a plurality of*cords in contact with the wick means to locate the cords in spaced parallel relation, a plurality of calender rolls between which a sheet of rubber is formed, and agrooved roll constructed and arranged to maintain the cords in such relation and to press them against a sheet of rubber on one of the calender rolls.

13. In a device of the class described, means to impregnate fibrous material with a solvent of rubber, means to press one side of said material into contact with a sheet of rubber, and means to press the other side of said material into contact with a second sheet of rubber.

14. In a device of the class described, means to impregnate a plurality of parallel cords with a solvent of rubber, means to press the cords against a sheet of rubber,

and means to press the uncoated side of the fabric. so formed against a second sheet of rubber.

15. In a device of the class described, means to impregnate a plurality of cords with a solvent of rubber, means to locate the? cords in spaced parallel relation, means to press the cords so located against a sheet of rubber, and means to press the uncoated side of the fabric so formed against a second sheet of rubber. 16. The method of uniting rubber and fibrous material consisting in applying to the fibrous material a rubber solvent consisting of benzol with from one to ten er cent of resin added, and ressing the rub er firml into contact with the fibrous materiall V 17. An apparatus for forming weftless cord fabric comprising calendering means for forming a sheet of rubber, means for arranging the cords in spaced parallel relation, means for pressing the cords 'while in such arrangement against the sheet so that the rubber penetrates at least partially between the cords while leaving a smooth surface skim coat of rubber, calendering means for forming a second sheet of rubber, and means for pressing said second sheet against the'side of the cords not covered by the first sheet, whereby the two rubber sheets are caused to adhere to each other between the cords and a fabric is produced having smooth outer rubber surfaces and embedded spaced parallel cords.

18. An apparatus for forming weftless cord fabric comprising means for working. rubber into sheet 'form and for supporting the sheet so produced, a supply for a series of strands, and mechanism adapted to present the strands to the rubber in parallelrelation, said mechanism comprising a aved roller positioned so that the stran pass over its surface and into contact with the rubber sheet and a device positioned between the grooved roller and the supply for arranging the strands in parallel relation and presenting the strands to the rooved roller in pro er relation to be received by the grooves t ereof.

THOMAS MIDGLEY.

DISCLAIMER I,50 9,365.Thomas Midgley, Sprin field, Mass. METHOD AND MACHI NE ron PRODUCING Conn FABRIC. atent dated Sei tember 23, 1924. D1scl a1mer filed November 21, 1936, by the assignee, he Fisk Rubber Corporation.

Hereb eqters this disclame'r to claim 17 of the specification.

[ Gazette December 8, 1936.] 

